Sherry-Lynn Womack, whose brief tenure on the Lee County Board of Education has been marked by opposition to placing a new elementary school at the W.B. Wicker site due to her concerns about “crime” and “safety,” was arrested in 2011 on charges of breaking and entering, according to public records.
The warrant for her arrest originated in Buncombe County, North Carolina, and was served at Womack’s Sanford home on May 15, 2011. She was processed at the Lee County Magistrate’s Office and released on a written promise to appear in Buncombe County District Court on August 2 of the same year.
Attempts to either locate an incident report detailing the alleged Buncombe County incident or learn the resolution of the case have been unsuccessful. But a report detailing Womack’s 2011 arrest and a mugshot were provided by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office in response to a request for public information.
According to that arrest report, Womack’s husband Jim — the chairman of Lee County’s Republican Party who served as a county commissioner from 2010 to 2014 and is now seeking the chairmanship of the state GOP — asked the deputy serving the warrant if he was aware of Womack’s status in county government and if there was a way for the charges to be “taken away.”
“Mr. Womack and I stepped outside and he stated ‘do you know who I am?’” the report reads. “I stated no sir. He stated he was Commissioner Womack and a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel. He also stated that his wife is an active Lieutenant Colonel in the Army. Mr. Womack asked if this could somehow be taken away because it was all a big misunderstanding.”
Sherry-Lynn Womack’s tenure on the school board hasn’t been without controversy. She was criticized for carrying a Donald Trump branded baseball bat to early voting sites, but later said it was in response to a social media post from local radio host Margaret Murchison.
Since being elected, she has called attention to crimes in the vicinity of Lee County’s next elementary school and said that a rape which took place there in the early 1980s makes the site unfit for a new school. She has also criticized a Sanford Herald reporter who has investigated — and largely refuted — her statements.
Sherry-Lynn Womack did not respond Thursday evening to a request for comment about the 2011 arrest.
